Category Archives: Branding

Marketing isn’t just about branding, creative, etc. – marketing accounts for the rise in global technology usage and stands poised to embrace the “Cloud”. The Cloud is a virtual environment that precludes the purchase of servers and other technology components to deploy websites, social media sites, etc. Amazon, Rackspace, Microsoft and Google have offerings in this space and there are three acronyms that marketers need to understand when deploying future marketing strategies – no matter which vendor you utilize. The three most typical deployment models are:

SaaS – Software As A Service. Pronounced “SASS”. Simplest deployment method which allows software to be tapped from a cloud computing resource rather than relying on software installations and implementations.

PaaS – Platform As A Service. Pronounced “PASS”. Intermediate deployment that steps away from simply renting applications from the cloud by leveraging the cloud as an operating system (platform). This also eliminates expensive network upkeep as most service providers provide routine maintenance and upgrades as a part of their SLA (service level offering).

IaaS – infrastructure As A Service. Pronounced “I-AS”. The holy grail of cloud computing! You access / rent everything from the cloud … this means servers, storage space, routers, and other hardware, networking capabilities, operating systems, and applications. This allows for the ultimate degree of scaling as your projects (and customers) dictate.

I’m looking forward to the Super Bowl advertising spots this year – we should see a true blend of old and new advertising / marketing strategies at play with traditional video and TV spots leveraging brand presence on Facebook, Twitter, and most importantly … YouTube. Major kudos to Volkswagen with their efforts thus far – a “pre-release” or sneak peak at their spot has generated more than 12 Millions views on YouTube, 50,000 Tweets, and over 140,000 Facebook shares … and get this … over 5,000 mentions on Google Buzz (I didn’t think they had that many users?!). YouTube may be the hands down winner in all of this as consumers hit the site to re-play not only scenes from the game but their favorite advertising spots as well. If a brand positions these marketing assets properly, there is a significant opportunity to build brand equity and drive revenue growth. In my opinion, the spots should direct consumers to YouTube to re-play the ads (maybe via a promotional enticement upon viewing?!) with an opportunity for customers to engage with the brand further via social media (think Facebook likes and follows) with the ultimate goal of driving a desired behavior (e-mail subscribe, purchase, etc.) by re-directing new Facebook and Twitter followers to the brand’s consumer web site.

You didn’t think I was going to let the Holidays pass without a marketing spin, did you? : )

Coca-Cola has once again mastered the art of Holiday marketing with its latest commercial featuring the band Train’s new single “Shake Up Christmas”. The commercial is titled “Snow Globes” and has been played in traditional and digital channels since Thanksgiving. Holiday marketing can be a tricky strategy for many companies that try to be everything to everyone. Rather than focusing on a single message (that would ultimately offend someone somewhere), Coca-Cola adapts current branding and messaging to local markets at a cultural level – whether you’re in Africa or North America.

ROI (Return On Investment) is a rather simple mathematical calculation that evaluates the efficiency of an investment or its performance in comparison to other investments. How simple? Here it is: Gains – Costs / Costs = ROI. Pretty nifty, right?

Here’s an example – if you use $100 of budget that nets $150 in revenue or gains your ROI is 50% (150 – 100 / 100 = .50).

The basic ROI equation becomes rather tricky in the Social Media realm. How valuable is a Twitter follower? What quantitative impact does a Facebook wall comment provide? Is the quantity of LinkedIn connections more important than the quality?

Social Media is a channel of open communication that exists outside of the normal boundaries of push and pull marketing and is difficult to provide firm ROI in the traditional sense. And this is where things get tricky …

Trying to prove the value of Social Media in a traditional ROI sense is rather difficult. You cannot easily quantify the value add of a Social Media presence in terms of traditional ROI gains. In fact, you’re more likely to show a loss when using a traditional ROI model. Social Media, as a channel, should be analyzed from a branding, engagement, influence, and competitive value add perspective as a component of strategic marketing initiatives. This allows for qualitative measurements of individual marketing channels that combined lead to revenue gains. Strategic marketing encompasses the channels and messaging that will deliver on business initiatives (i.e. sales, hires, brand recall, viral marketing, etc.). Thus, the Social Media aspect of marketing ROI cannot be measured alone.

I guarantee you that a marketing executive will get fired looked at funny if they delivered an ROI analysis that included this statement: “We spent $50,000 on a Facebook page and have not been able to prove that anyone posting comments on the wall or who has followed the page actually buys our products. But, it looks cool. And, everyone else is doing it.”

Social Media’s ROI should (typically) be tied to branding and influence initiatives within the marketing budget and strategy. Branding ROI is component of marketing ROI and should never be analyzed independently … rather, the entire marketing budget (thus, your strategy delivery mechanism) should be utilized against total revenues or gains to determine effectiveness of the strategy. No results = Bad strategy. Plain and simple. Simply creating a corporate Facebook page or Twitter account is a tactical response to a strategic problem. Changing your channels of communications as part of a shift in marketing mix that is quantifiable in gains (ROI) is a strategic move.

That marketing executive I mentioned earlier would look like a rockstar if their statement included: “We built a fan base to mitigate negative public comments and bolster positive consumer opinions that would impact our brand. We leveraged sponsored campaigns on this channel (Facebook) that were tied to the page and tracked click-throughs and sales via web analytics …” and so on.

At the end of the day, it’s all about ROI. Plain and simple. Did your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc. create gains on its own or was it part of a marketing mix that worked in unison from a strategic perspective to deliver gains? The person signing checks or giving you a budget doesn’t care about fans, followers, comments, and so on … they are concerned with your strategy and its ultimate impact on revenue. Positioning social media as a progressive and innovative component of your overall strategy makes you look like a rockstar – if, and only if, that strategy, as a whole, actually delivers something quantifiable like revenues, hires, etc.

From time to time I’ve seen job postings or requisitions for Brand Ambassadors to represent a Brand in a positive way and carry the brand message out to the public via a variety of media channels. This is an extremely important role in marketing that often represents a strategic initiative to initiate or further customer engagement especially in new marketing channels like social media. The role affords the organization control over public messaging and can provide valuable feedback and metrics for analysis of market engagement, penetration, segmentation, etc.

I believe a lot of organizations have failed to recognize their employees as Brand Ambassadors. Yes, I’ve heard almost everyone say that they feel their employees are Brand Ambassadors but this isn’t something typically supported from a corporate perspective. Thanks to social media (whether YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogs … take your pick!) everyone can truly be an ambassador – and to the chagrin of a lot of marketing organizations … they already are.

Why not EMPOWER your employees to be brand amabassadors? Every company has an opportunity to do this during new hire training, onboarding, or even via their employee handbooks. HR and Marketing could team up and devise a very quick yet powerful brand overview or guideline that employees could feel empowered (and supported) to leverage across their social media presence. Employees are (usually) very proud of their workplace and want to share stories, interactions, etc. with their personal networks … and trust me, they already do … but have not been armed with referencable items like logos, tag lines, style sheets, or even a Top 10 List of do’s and don’ts. In the recent past, Google’s handbook summed all of this up in one line … “Don’t be stupid.” … although, I’m sure that’s changed by now. Wouldn’t it be great if your entire organization felt empowered to be brand ambassadors?

On November 17th I’ll be facilitating a roundtable discussion for work at HealthPartners in Minneapolis. “Recruiting IS Marketing” is the theme for the event and I’m excited to bring the best of marketing and recruiting practices together as well as learn what other major employers in the Twin Cities are up to with their Talent Marketing efforts.

I’m planning on introducing basic concepts like consumer behavior, marketing management, etc. courtesy of my MBA coursework at St. Thomas and how each of them is vital for organizations to leverage moving into 2011 and 2012. We are fast approaching (believe it or not) a very significant shortage of skilled talent as our economy continues a shift from an industrial base to a knowledge base. The battle lines are being drawn …

Any major marketing organization, like a big box retailer, is in the midst of final preparations for Q4 business (their version of the battle line). They’ve spent the past 12 months (since the end of the prior Holiday season) leveraging marketing practices to understand, engage, influence, and drive consumer purchasing behaviors. They’ve built loyal followings and preliminary engagements via social media, have a presence on search engines, have optimized their advertising channels, invigorated their websites, and prepped their operations and processes as part of their execution strategy. So, why am I talking about retailers and marketing?

Because, recruiting IS marketing!

Talent Acquisition / Retention should be in the business of executing an organizations overall business level strategy. It is the Human Capital of an organization in an ever increasing global knowledge based economy that enables success or leads to failure. Recruiting organizations are far too often leveraging antiquated methodologies when it comes to acquiring talent for their companies. Bridging the gap between their B2C or B2B marketing efforts with their recruiting efforts should be a primary goal for Talent Acquisition in preparation for the impending shortage of skilled talent. A synergy between corporate marketing and human resources creates organizational efficiencies and drives additional value (and results) for both departments. After all, job candidates are customers and customers are job candidates.

The battle lines are being drawn and plans are being made … the decisions that are made in the coming months will determine who gets the sale (or candidate) and who doesn’t in 2011 and 2012.

Coopetition or Co-opetition is a business term defined as cooperative competition. It is a unique strategy where competitors unite within a specific marketplace by leveraging each others assets in an effort to gain market share, drive revenue, protect image, gain recognition, etc.

While most common in the business world (example: Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s United Space Alliance ), coopetition extends itself into our personal ecosystems via social media outlets like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Each of us has a personal brand that we build via social networks and that we utilize for gaining our own market share. Our market may be friends and family, reuniting with former classmates, or even looking for job. LinkedIn is a perfect example of coopetition … our personal and professional brands live in unison with other network connections on LinkedIn that typically have similar backgrounds or skill sets yet we leverage the power of their connections or networks to further our own interests – whether to generate new business, get a new job, recruit a candidate, etc.

The power of social media is the opportunity to take one of the most powerful business strategies and apply it to our personal and professional lives – to cooperate and compete … for new friends, new relationships, or new jobs.